Apple Lightning/USB-C to 3.5mm Dongle Impressions
Hey all, I wanted to share my subjective listening impressions of the Apple dongle (henceforth referred to as "dongle"). I don't see many sound impressions of it, which is surprising given that it's probably one of the most ubiquitous sources on the planet. Plus now that lossless audio has hit iPhone, the dongle presents a new standard for sources more than ever. I won't focus on the specifications too much (again, this post is intended to reflect how I hear the dongle), but the dongle has an excellent OI that's under 1ohm and the USB-C version, at least, has an extremely low noise floor. And as for how it actually sounds? Turns out pretty darn good.
The general nature of the Apple dongle's sound signature is a smooth one that perceptively hits fairly close to neutral. Bass has good presence on the dongle, suffering more on the front of texture and sounding slightly inflated. The midrange is probably the most distinctive part of the dongle's sound; it's at the forefront of the dongle's presentation and notes have good "size" to them. Consequently, I do find the overall presentation to be a more oval one that tends to lack depth, and transients are not as sharp as they could be articulated. But I don't dislike it, as it's oh-so-easy on the ears. The dongle's treble response is another story, though. I would say it sits slightly behind the midrange; neither recessed nor forward. The real problem lies in its texture. I enjoy a more realistic edge to my treble. Here, the overall smoothness comes off not necessarily plasticky, but not particularly natural either. When the hi-hats come in on Brooks & Dunn's "Red Dirt Road" at 0:29, they sound upwards-compressed and one-note; that is, difficult to distinguish from one another.
For technicalities, the dongle is pretty competent at articulating surface-level stuff. The more you listen to it, though, the more you come to realize that it's too smooth for its own good. On Keith Urban's "Sweet Thing," for example, the decay of the opening drum sounds a hint truncated and it lacks the slight shimmer and richness that better sources will exhibit. There are a lot of other tasteful nuances that the dongle seems to skim over, such as at around 1:20 on Taeyeon's "Make Me Love You". The transition from the synth effect to the bass-line is flatter than it should be, so the cadence of the track gets thrown off; the bridge is missing weight. Along these lines, for macro-dynamic contrast, the dongle is fairly competent but the nature of the swings themselves is messy. When a track explodes into loudness, for example, it seems to hover and extend through at the peak longer than it should, thus failing to catch the swing on the way back down. Generally, as I've alluded to so far, I would say it's a more upwards-compressed source.
Wow, I've given the dongle a lot of flack, haven't I? But while my impressions might seem critical, bear in mind that this thing is $10! You'll notice that I've critiqued little things here and there. That's because there's nothing that the dongle does blatantly wrong, and I'd genuinely struggle to see most listeners finding fault. In fact, in the grand scheme of things, it sounds better than a lot of dedicated DAPs I've heard! It's my benchmark. If you want me to say your source is good, it needs to at least be on par with or better than the Apple dongle.
Score: 5/10
